134 . AMERICAN FISHES. 



there. Nor would there, I believe, be touch more risk or hardship 

 attending the performance of such a. sporting tour, by a strong and 

 well-found party, than was incurred, not only without hesitation, but 

 with alacrity and enthusiasm, by the sporting gentlemen who Crossed 

 the Mississippi, in pursuit of the elk and buflfalo, at any time antece- 

 dent to the Black Hawk war. 



The excitement, the novelty, and, consequently, the charm of such 

 an expedition, would be indescribable ; and as the brief summer of 

 those regions is as beautiful as it is brief, while the sportsman would be 

 brought into contact with an entirely new race of beasts, birds, and fish 

 of chase, I can imagine nothing that would better repay the risk and 

 enterprise of such an expedition. 



All the arrangements of such a tour could be made with greatest 

 ease at Montreal, where every facility could be afforded to the tourists 

 by the agents of the fur companies, and where the whole of the 

 necessary means are just as well understood, and the necessary outfit 

 just as easily procured, as are those for a fishing excursion into Hamil- 

 ton County, in New York, or for a Maine Moose-hunt, in Boston. 



The prairies of the West have long been explored as hunting grounds, 

 by the sportsmen of the old as well as by the hunters and the trappers 

 of the new world— the forests and deserts of Africa have afforded 

 their trophies of the savage trace, the central wilds of Abyssinia have 

 surrendered their fierce denizens, the forests of Ceylon, and the dark 

 jungles of the farthest India, have become familiar hunting grounds to 

 the English sportsmen ; and I think it is scarcely to be doubted that, 

 before many years have elapsed, the Swedish and Norwegian rivers 

 being already overfished, the votaries of the rod and reel from either 

 side of the Atlantic, will be found whipping the yet virgin streams of 

 the far Northwest. 



Political reasons, too, will have their weight in bringing about such 

 a consummation ; for the disturbed state of the continent is already 

 sufficiently alarming to deter the pleasure-seeking yatcher from visiting 

 his old haunts in the soft and sunny seas of southern Europe, while the 

 stormier seas of the Western world offer him peace at least and hos- 

 pitality, while on these shores he will find sport, whether he affect the 

 rifle or the rod, far superior to what he has been used to enjoy on the 



